The Film Comment Letter: Visions of the Future 🔭

November 01, 2024 The Film Comment Letter: Visions of the Future 🔭 View in browser   |   filmcomment.com November 1, 2024 WEBSITE   |   PODCAST   |   LATEST Dear Readers, After our traditional post-NYFF nap, we've awakened wide-eyed and refreshed, and we're back in your inbox with the kind of inspired independent film criticism we aim to deliver each week. We open the proceedings with J. Hoberman's review of Johan Grimonprez's kaleidoscopic new archival documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat . The film unearths a treasure trove of 1960s-era footage to paint a portrait of the global political and cultural milieux that swirled around the Congolese independence movement, which culminated in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. As Jim writes, the film offers "a dense mix of newsreels, TV broadcasts, home movies, and headlines—an assemblage for which jazz, from both American and African musicians, sets the tempo." Next up is the pre read